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Noun: complementation  ,kóm-plu-mun'tey-shun
  1. The way in which a verb, adjective, or noun is completed by another word or phrase to form a meaningful constructio
    "In 'want to go', the infinitive provides complementation for the verb 'want'"
     
  2. (linguistics) a distribution of related speech sounds or forms in such a way that they only appear in different contexts
    "In English, [h] and [ŋ] are in complementation, never occurring in the same position";
    - complementary distribution

Derived forms: complementations

Type of: dispersion, distribution, grammatical relation

Encyclopedia: Complementation